


The shattered aftermath of the blast

by kimabutch (CWoodP)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (accidental and not described in detail), (again very brief and vague), (not very bad gore I just wanna be sure), Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mild Gore, Panic Attacks, Pre-Canon, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22199938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/pseuds/kimabutch
Summary: The night after the incident at Cambridge.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44





	The shattered aftermath of the blast

After the accident, they keep him in his dorm room. They don’t prevent him from leaving — how could they stop him, not yet found guilty and the son of a banker? — but the understanding is clear: Hamid’s to stay in his suite until the university has had a chance to clean up his mess and figure out what happened. 

The silence of his room is deafening. 

He spends the first several hours pacing, trying to calm his breathing. He feels as if a hand is reaching into his ribs and twisting his heart, drawing it out along with his lungs, and at times he’s brought to his knees by the pain and breathlessness. It’s at these moments that he realizes that he’s been shaking, that he was floating outside himself in numb horror of his actions, of — he can’t think about what he did, and he can’t think about anything else.

At some point, he notices Liliana’s blazer hung on the door of his closet. She hasn’t sent him a magical message yet. Or she has, and he hasn’t heard. 

He can’t think of Gideon.

Hamid doesn’t remember someone knocking and delivering food, but it’s there. He takes a few untasting bites before his mind wanders to the student who’d come out of the classroom screaming, her face mangled — Hamid’s on his knees, puking. It takes a long time for his voice and hands to stop shaking enough for him to Prestidigitate it clean. 

When he finally collapses onto his bed, fully clothed, he dreams that he is writing the formula again. He’s at his desk, pouring over the library book, making notes on paper, his face a determined smile. Hamid tries to stop, tries to tear himself away from his pen, but his hands won’t stop writing. He tries to yell, but his smile remains. Before him is Gideon, asking when the formula will be ready, teasing Hamid for his squeamishness, laughing at the professor.

Hamid is screaming now, clawing at the book and the paper and Gideon and himself. His friend’s laugh grates on him and he wants nothing more than to silence him, to destroy their plans, to burn it all down and let the flames take him, too. 

He wakes up yelling. He’s sat upright in bed. His covers have been kicked aside and his sheets ripped to shreds as if with knives. His clothes, too, are torn, and the skin underneath bears long, animalistic, surface-level cuts. Numbly, he wonders how he did that. He’ll have to ask for them to bring him new sheets. Another thing he’s destroyed. 

Drawing his knees to his chest, he sobs. He doesn’t notice that the tears are evaporating off his searing-hot skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I just wanted to explore Hamid's draconic ancestry manifesting (without him noticing) before the start of the campaign and then all of a sudden I was writing Hamid having a panic attack.
> 
> Title is from Going Invisible 2 by the Mountain Goats.


End file.
